The Steel Guitar Forum

When I used to use a Goodrich pedal to a NV 400, an Izzy or Goodrich sustain made them sound very good. Now I use a Hilton pedal to an Evans amp and it seems like I get the same sound (or even better)without the Izzy or matchbox or sustain??? Can someone really explain the functions of these devices, advantages and disadvantages????

That's right, How true. ...al

Simple. The Goodrich and Izzy boxes are basically buffers to keep the pickups form being loaded won by the pot in the volume pedal.

The Hilton pedal does not use a pot, so basicallyt eh circuit is already buffered.

(long story short-- with the Hilton pedal, the 'izzy' or 'super sustain' is already in there)

Well, some call these devices "buffers", but I prefer to call them all "preamps", plain and simple. There is some thought that the "loading" may change the frequency response, but more often than not, when (and if) you can set the gain of these devices to "unity" (meaning no gain at all), they make surprisingly little difference in the actual sound, or tone of the instrument.

You have to keep in mind, though, that more gain often gives you a wider scope of tone control. Perhaps I should elaborate a little. This is the reason that a 100-watt amp generally sounds "better" than a 50-watt amp. The higher output capability means you can lower the frequencies that you don't like, and still have an equivalent volume output. Twice the output power in an amp (or even a significant signal increase...in the form of a preamp) can give you "more to work with" when you start using the tone controls. The tone controls in almost all amps are "cut devices". They don't allow you to <u>add</u> anything, but merely allow you to "cut out" what you don't want. Of course, if you cut out too much, you simply don't have enough signal left to provide the sound (or tone) you want at the required volume.
This is why I have preached for amps with "active" graphic equalizers (those that can actually <u>boost</u> selected frequencies). This would give us far superior tonal capabilities to what most of us are using right now.

So far, though, nobody's listening.